Racing Lines: Anthony Gobert
If this isn’t a golden era for Australian international road racing, I don’t know what is. We have world champions in the premier Grand Prix (Mick Doohan) and Superbike (Troy Corser) classes, four guys with works 500 rides and a 125 GP racer with works equipment, and more good Superbike racers knocking on the door for international recognition.
1996 concluded in ways you couldn’t script. Garry McCoy’s gutsy Eastern Creek ride, under sustained pressure, was a special moment. Broadcaster Will Hagon later opined that he saw more passing in that race than in a year of four-wheeled motorsport.
Unfortunately for the fans, but in a gift for headline writers, the cork blew out of the Mick Doohan/Alex Criville 500 battle. Some reckoned the Turn Nine collision (at Eastern Creek) was inevitable after the closest ever 500 season in terms of winning margins.
On the day, however, most saw the crash as spoiling Mick’s championship homecoming. What did surprise was Criville’s poor racecraft. As former Suzuka Eight-Hour winner Tony Hatton noted, trying to pass Doohan around the outside of Turn Two was inviting Mick to hold him out wide. And we all saw what happened later.
While the Grand Prix had intensity, the Phillip Island SWC meeting won out on spectacle. Here was a meeting which confirmed hero status for Australian Superbike racers, with our first SWC champion and a double race winner. And a highest finish for Suzuki’s new GSX-R750, in the hands of Peter Goddard. There was plenty of by-play, with striptease, birds (the feathered variety), a seemingly innocuous fall ending Aaron Slight’s title aspirations, unbelievable bike control and a scintillating performance from Australian-sired Texan Colin Edwards II.
TW’s GP photographer Lou Martin suggested late in 1995 that the GP circus should put a major effort into securing Troy Corser and Anthony Gobert, because they represented the late 1990’s equivalent of the Rainey and Schwantz contest.
Now they are headed that way, to the very makes which Wayne and Kevin represented.
Nobody questions Corser’s handling the transition to 500s. My feeling is he’ll do it the way Eddie Lawson did. Size it up, pace it out, then go fast. With Troy, there is no great song and dance until the job is done. He’s Mr Smooth, with the bike always looking as if it’s under him. But do not doubt the ambition behind Corser’s country boy persona. Here is a rider who has performed each time the competition bar has been raised. After Phillip Island, Troy spoke in terms of the Superbike crown being another step towards his ultimate goal. The 500 crown. But first up the target is a championship top ten.
And Anthony Gobert? You will have heard it said before about Anthony, that he is special. In the old days you would have heard cliches such as “’defies the laws of physics or gravity”. We know better now. Gobert demonstrates what can be achieved when you start riding early, train year-in, year-out for hours and have total confidence in your tyres.
The late Chas Chandler (the man credited with discovering the late Jimi Hendrix) once observed of Hendrix that people don’t become that good by accident. It comes from hours and hours of practice.
There’s something else you could argue about Gobert: that a young rider who keeps his own counsel retains more flair, mostly because he hasn’t been told what not to do.
An older mentor might have told him you’re not supposed to arrive at corners with both wheels sliding and the rear end hung out more than half a metre. And now Gobert is going to a team which is, shall we say, the least interfering of the major factories on how to ride its products.
Anthony can’t wait to race a 500. In 1995 he tested a Honda NSR500 and decided the class was where he ought to be. Speaking of the new challenge, he says: “I’ve got to learn Michelin tyres and got to be careful not to get injured. You have to look at the whole season.”
Moreover, Gobert promises of his persona that: “I’ll be the same, no matter where I go”.
Tester and author Alan Cathcart says Gobert can do anything on a bike and will just ride around problems on a 500. Someone else suggested Gobert will punch a hole in the scenery. Apart from being unkind, I might point out that there have always been dire predictions about the really fast guys.
The middle ground notes that Gobert hasn’t taken the time to learn how to set up a bike, and that could be a problem in 500s. But Gobert’s double victory at Phillip Island showed what he can do when he applies himself and rides to a plan.
And, just as importantly, Gobert’s flair will be a bonus in GP racing. He gives the people what they want.
But I can only wonder if the current GP hierarchy is ready for a man with red hair and a T-shirt reading: “I am what I am”.
And that’s awesome.
By Don Cox. Two Wheels, January 1997. Main image by Gold and Goose
